THE MEDIA BUSINESS: Advertising; Campbell Shapes Up All Around

By Stuart Elliott

Published: January 29, 1992

THE Campbell Soup Company is ambitiously expanding its lines of pantry- and freezer-food products through one of the most comprehensive advertising programs being undertaken by a large American grocery marketer. The company, which spends more than $250 million annually on marketing, is lifting the budget by 8 percent, up from a 5 percent increase announced last year.

The expansion involves everything from Campbell's traditional red-and-white cans of condensed soup, which are being dressed up in new labels featuring photographs of the ingredients inside, to new lines of lower-fat, lower-calorie foods under brand names like Mrs. Paul's Healthy Treasures and Healthy Request.

All that product news is being conveyed to consumers in a barrage of television commercials, print advertisements and even miniature billboards attached to supermarket shopping carts.

"We have made a conscious decision to spend more," Herbert M. Baum, the new president of the Campbell North and South America division, said in a recent telephone interview, to prevent "our brand franchises from starting to slip away from us."

He added: "We know we're good at, and can make lots of money at, dry groceries and frozen foods. Where we think we're getting results, we'll get much more aggressive. If we don't think we're getting all out of our advertising that we should be, we'll put the money somewhere else."

His remarks alluded to previous expansion efforts, like the failed Fresh Chef line of refrigerated salads, that took Campbell far afield of its core businesses and were discontinued.

Campbell's decision to bolster marketing spending is significant beyond the fate of the company's new condensed broccoli cheese soup. Along with stepped-up spending by other packaged-goods giants, like the Procter & Gamble Company and Unilever P.L.C. of Britain, it could mean a rebirth for brand-name products, which have been hard-hit during the recession as consumers cut back or switch to store brands.

For marketers like those, "there is a need for growth," said Edward F. Ogiba, the president of Group EFO Ltd., a marketing consulting company in Weston, Conn.

In a survey conducted last year by Group EFO, he added, 61 percent of the companies responding said 30 percent or more of their sales over the next five years must come from new products, compared with 48 percent in 1990.

"Products like our condensed soups would do very well in an economy like this," Mr. Baum said.

As a result, ad dollars are being spent for the first time in many years on an underpromoted line of condensed soups in family-sized 26-ounce cans.

"When you reconstitute two of those, they will fill your bathtub," Mr. Baum said. Since August, sales of those larger cans are 64 percent higher than a year ago, he added.

Part of Campbell's increased spending is being financed by money that had been spent on promotions aimed at consumers, like cents-off coupons, and at grocery retailers, like bonuses to entice them to stock Campbell products.

Another aspect of Campbell's activities is changes in the company's roster of advertising agencies. Earlier this month, an estimated $25 million in frozen-food brands were moved to BBDO Worldwide from Ogilvy & Mather, which retains only Campbell's Pepperidge Farm line of baked goods. BBDO added brands like LeMenu frozen foods to a list that included products like Campbell's Chunky Soup and Mrs. Paul's frozen fish line.

Campbell's panoply of marketing moves reflects the involvement of David W. Johnson, who became president and chief executive in 1990, determined to rejuvenate a marketer perceived to have fallen behind its grocery rivals.

"This is a company that has gone through a major cleaning-up and restructuring," said Nomi Ghez, a food-industry analyst at Goldman, Sachs & Company in New York, referring to steps Mr. Johnson took in the last two years. "Now is the time to focus on rebuilding its core businesses.

"That is especially true for a company that has such strong brands as Campbell," she added. "You have to make sure they grow and expand."

Photo: The traditional red-and-white cans of Campbell's soup, left, will have new labels featuring photographs of the ingredients, right.